Judicial Watch Fights Biden Justice Department Request to Transfer Ashli Babbitt $30 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit to Washington, DC

[Valletta]

We argue:

Defendant’s position [to transfer venue] illustrates and underscores the prejudice and injustice that Plaintiffs would face if venue were transferred to the District of Columbia. Defendant mentions 80 Capitol Police officers and 60 Metropolitan Police officers that were injured and connects the deaths of three officers to the events on that day, thus connecting Ashli Babbitt to these deaths and other injuries, as if she caused them. The request for a change in venue is clearly influenced by Defendant’s strongest motivation for changing venue, which is to select the forum where it feels it would receive a favorable process and outcome based on adversity against January 6 participants. By its motion, Defendant hopes to unfairly and unjustly connect Ashli Babbitt to violence, injuries, and deaths for which she is blameless and connect her by association to thousands of individuals convicted of misdemeanors and felonies for which she was never charged and is unable to present a defense due to the lawless actions of one of Defendant’s employees in shooting and killing her.

Justice for Ashli Babbitt! - Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch just asked a federal court to deny the U.S. Government’s request to transfer the Ashli Babbitt $30 million wrongful death lawsuit from California to Washington, DC. Among other legal points, we argue that it would prejudice the case and be unjust for Ashli’s family if it were...

www.judicialwatch.org

This was a bad shooting, the officer's life was not in imminent danger. He panicked and shot Ashli in cold blood.

 

[Bradskii]

We argue:

Defendant’s position [to transfer venue] illustrates and underscores the prejudice and injustice that Plaintiffs would face if venue were transferred to the District of Columbia. Defendant mentions 80 Capitol Police officers and 60 Metropolitan Police officers that were injured and connects the deaths of three officers to the events on that day, thus connecting Ashli Babbitt to these deaths and other injuries, as if she caused them. The request for a change in venue is clearly influenced by Defendant’s strongest motivation for changing venue, which is to select the forum where it feels it would receive a favorable process and outcome based on adversity against January 6 participants. By its motion, Defendant hopes to unfairly and unjustly connect Ashli Babbitt to violence, injuries, and deaths for which she is blameless and connect her by association to thousands of individuals convicted of misdemeanors and felonies for which she was never charged and is unable to present a defense due to the lawless actions of one of Defendant’s employees in shooting and killing her.

Justice for Ashli Babbitt! - Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch just asked a federal court to deny the U.S. Government’s request to transfer the Ashli Babbitt $30 million wrongful death lawsuit from California to Washington, DC. Among other legal points, we argue that it would prejudice the case and be unjust for Ashli’s family if it were...

www.judicialwatch.org

This was a bad shooting, the officer's life was not in imminent danger. He panicked and shot Ashli in cold blood.

I'm at home. There is a baying crowd outside. They've been there for a long time. Now they are hammering on the front door. I get my family upstairs into the main bedroom. I barricade the bedroom door. I hear them breaking into the house. There were neighbours there trying to stop them but they were beaten aside.

I am armed. The mob is coming up stairs. They are trying to break down the door. I shout at them to stop. The door splinters. They are about to come charging into the room.

Now I have a choice. I can let them get to my family or I can do what I can to protect them. I choose to do what I can and I shoot the first person who is trying to get in.

Anyone who thinks that I should have put down my weapon and let the mob break in is a fool. Anyone who would not have done everything he could have to protect those he swore to defend would have to the live with the consequences. Which would also include the anger of everyone who knew that he had the means to protect them but chose not to.

Anyone who breaks into a building to get to a group of people when they know as a fact that there are are armed people sworn to protect them yet still attempt to break down one of the last lines of defence deserves whatever outcome comes their way.

That there wasn't greater bloodshed is a credit to professionalism of those who were protecting elected officials. Any attempt to try to colour this as someone martyred for some monstrously idiotic cause is beneath contempt.

 

[Pommer]

We argue:

Defendant’s position [to transfer venue] illustrates and underscores the prejudice and injustice that Plaintiffs would face if venue were transferred to the District of Columbia. Defendant mentions 80 Capitol Police officers and 60 Metropolitan Police officers that were injured and connects the deaths of three officers to the events on that day, thus connecting Ashli Babbitt to these deaths and other injuries, as if she caused them. The request for a change in venue is clearly influenced by Defendant’s strongest motivation for changing venue, which is to select the forum where it feels it would receive a favorable process and outcome based on adversity against January 6 participants. By its motion, Defendant hopes to unfairly and unjustly connect Ashli Babbitt to violence, injuries, and deaths for which she is blameless and connect her by association to thousands of individuals convicted of misdemeanors and felonies for which she was never charged and is unable to present a defense due to the lawless actions of one of Defendant’s employees in shooting and killing her.

Justice for Ashli Babbitt! - Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch just asked a federal court to deny the U.S. Government’s request to transfer the Ashli Babbitt $30 million wrongful death lawsuit from California to Washington, DC. Among other legal points, we argue that it would prejudice the case and be unjust for Ashli’s family if it were...

www.judicialwatch.org

This was a bad shooting, the officer's life was not in imminent danger. He panicked and shot Ashli in cold blood.

Where did these events occur? Maybe that would be the proper jurisdiction to hold these proceedings?
Even if it stays in California, any appeal goes to the (whacky) Ninth Circuit. This SCOTUS won’t touch whatever the Circuit decides.

 

[Valletta]

I'm at home. There is a baying crowd outside. They've been there for a long time. Now they are hammering on the front door. I get my family upstairs into the main bedroom. I barricade the bedroom door. I hear them breaking into the house. There were neighbours there trying to stop them but they were beaten aside.

I am armed. The mob is coming up stairs. They are trying to break down the door. I shout at them to stop. The door splinters. They are about to come charging into the room.

Now I have a choice. I can let them get to my family or I can do what I can to protect them. I choose to do what I can and I shoot the first person who is trying to get in.

Anyone who thinks that I should have put down my weapon and let the mob break in is a fool. Anyone who would not have done everything he could have to protect those he swore to defend would have to the live with the consequences. Which would also include the anger of everyone who knew that he had the means to protect them but chose not to.

Anyone who breaks into a building to get to a group of people when they know as a fact that there are are armed people sworn to protect them yet still attempt to break down one of the last lines of defence deserves whatever outcome comes their way.

That there wasn't greater bloodshed is a credit to professionalism of those who were protecting elected officials. Any attempt to try to colour this as someone martyred for some monstrously idiotic cause is beneath contempt.

That's a good story, but a few cops who were standing there rather casually walked away--hardly indicative of a "last line of defense." Take the huge Black Lives Matters mob. The police could have pulled their weapons, made sure the mob could see them. Then if they were rushed and the mob was close enough to physically hurt them they could justifiably fire their weapons. If the mob was twenty feet away they couldn't, and didn't fire into the mob. One unarmed 110 lb woman trying to get through a window from a distance is not a justifiable shooting. After the copy gunned her down he got on the radio and lied and indicated the mob had fired shots.

 

[Bradskii]

One unarmed 110 lb woman trying to get through a window from a distance is not a justifiable shooting.

Good grief, man. She was just the first to try to get throught the door! You spin it like it was just her. Stop talking nonsense. You think the rest of the idiots were going to stand back and just cheer her on? Whoever was front and centre in that mob was likely going to get shot. What on earth would you think would happen if you were trying to break down a door when there are armed men protecting people on the other side?

Get real. And ask yourself what you'd do protecting your family from a mob breaking into your home. Put the kettle on and sit around the table for a nice chat? They'd broken into the Capitol for heaven's sake. The actual Capitol. They were metres from congressmen and women who were ringing loved ones, fearing for their lives.

And the cop said they fired first? Where do you get this stuff?

 

[rocknanchor]

This was a bad shooting

I'm prone to pin the root of precipitation on how many things got bad.

", , but a few cops who were standing there rather casually walked away, ,

Sorry for the redundancy, but there we have it, a stage of "few" by choice of Nancy Pelosi standing down PDJT's request for bulking up with the NG. She should have testified years ago!

 

[perplexed]

This was a bad shooting, the officer's life was not in imminent danger. He panicked and shot Ashli in cold blood.

I would have believed I was in danger and shot her

 

[KCfromNC]

One unarmed 110 lb woman

I'm just here to point out when immigrants cross the border, they're portrayed in right wing propaganda as "military aged males" "invading" the country. When someone with actual military experience is caught at the head of a right-wing mob attacking the US Capitol, the above quote is how she is described.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

the officer's life was not in imminent danger.

What makes you so certain? How would you know what she was there to do?

 

[GoldenBoy89]

One unarmed 110 lb woman trying to get through a window from a distance is not a justifiable shooting.

would you agree she probably should not have been doing that?

 

[durangodawood]

People trying to violently break in do not deserve the benefit of doubt. When you try to break in to where others feel justifiably threatened, you put the officer and those others in a terrible situation, and if they feel the need to defend themselves, thats on you. You did this.

This used to be the "conservative" way of looking at things. I realize much of "the right" has largely left conservative behind, and has entered radical territory.

 

[DaisyDay]

Judicial Watch took it upon itself to file the lawsuit in California on the estate's behalf.

We filed the lawsuit on January 5, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on behalf of the family of Ashli Babbitt, the
U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd on January 6, 2021 (Estate of Ashli Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt, et al. v. United States of America (No. 3:24-cv-00033)).

As our complaint recounts:​

The shooting occurred at the east entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby. After demonstrators filled the hallway outside the lobby, two individuals in the crowded, tightly packed hallway struck and dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors and the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd, who is a United States Capitol Police commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli on sight as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd later confessed that he shot Ashli before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even identifying her as female. Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in the air, empty, and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and other officers in the lobby.​

​

Rather than merely dislodged, the glass was smashed in and broken. According to the complaint account, Babbitt hoisted herself up and partially through the window without using her hands as the claim is that her hands were raised.

 

[Hans Blaster]

One unarmed 110 lb woman trying to get through a window from a distance is not a justifiable shooting.

Do I have to tell you again that she was armed? Or had worked security (AP) when in the USAF? (Not that the defenders knew either of those things, they just saw an invader poised to enter the space containing their protectees.)

 

[Valletta]

What makes you so certain? How would you know what she was there to do?

Exactly the right question. A police officer cannot presume that an unarmed person twenty feet away may want to do harm to him or her. We just had a case where a man struggled with a police officer for her weapon, she shot him although she meant to use her taser, and she went to PRISON even though all agreed she did not mean to shoot him. Here all agreed the guy's actions in shooting an unarmed person who was not physically engaging him or close enough even to try and take his weapon were deliberate. Nancy Pelosi made sure he got a medal because he shot a conservative. Under the law all are supposed to be treated equally.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Exactly the right question. A police officer cannot presume that an unarmed person twenty feet away may want to do harm to him or her. We just had a case where a man struggled with a police officer for her weapon, she shot him although she meant to use her taser, and she went to PRISON even though all agreed she did not mean to shoot him. Here all agreed the guy's actions in shooting an unarmed person who was not physically engaging him or close enough even to try and take his weapon were deliberate. Nancy Pelosi made sure he got a medal because he shot a conservative. Under the law all are supposed to be treated equally.

Literally none of what you're saying here has EVER been the standard for police shootings. Police do not have to wait for a threat to get within arms reach to shoot. They don't have to verify that an object in hand is a weapon. They don't even have to see a weapon. All they need is to feel that themselves or, in this case, the people they are protecting are in imminent danger of bodily harm. That has always been the case. Why is this different?

 

[Valletta]

Literally none of what you're saying here has EVER been the standard for police shootings. Police do not have to wait for a threat to get within arms reach to shoot. They don't have to verify that an object in hand is a weapon. They don't even have to see a weapon. All they need is to feel that themselves or, in this case, the people they are protecting are in imminent danger of bodily harm. That has always been the case. Why is this different?

That's false. You can't shoot someone on a feeling. You have to have reasonable cause for the actions you take. Why in the world do you think that the Minnesota female officer was sent to prison? Now there are differences from manslaughter and degrees of murder, but you can't just shoot someone because of what you think their motives are. Remember that Australian woman ran up to the police car and the cop shot her? He thought his life and his partner's life were in danger. But it was a bad shooting.

 

[7thKeeper]

One unarmed 110 lb woman

This has been pointed out to you SEVERAL times before, she was not unarmed. You insisting on saying this after several corrections reeks of dishonesty.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

That's false. You can't shoot someone on a feeling. You have to have reasonable cause for the actions you take. Why in the world do you think that the Minnesota female officer was sent to prison? Now there are differences from manslaughter and degrees of murder, but you can't just shoot someone because of what you think their motives are. Remember that Australian woman ran up to the police car and the cop shot her? He thought his life and his partner's life were in danger. But it was a bad shooting.

You obviously haven't been paying attention. You're just wrong (or more accurately, never actually cared before). And you're making a political argument anyway and not in good faith. You haven't posted about any of these other "bad shoots" before, but this one is different for (R)easons. Just stop, dude.

 

[Bradskii]

You have to have reasonable cause for the actions you take.

They were breaking down the last line of defence between elected officials and a mob that had forcibly and violently broken into the Capitol. How much more 'reasonable cause' does one need to take action? The first person trying to get through that door was going to be shot.